"A power house of talent has descended on the orchard of Carnatic Music to make it resplendent in all its varied hues and nuances, weaving around it a magnetic field that not only sustains the audience interest but makes them crave for a little more of it. This sudden and brilliant outburst of musical wizardry is from the tender hands of Master Shrinivas who with a caress of the strings of the tiny instrument Mandolin sets the pace for a thoroughly enjoyable fare of Carnatic music that normally has come to be regarded as the preserve of a few savant grade senior musicians". Shrinivas was born in Palakol in West Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh on February 28, 1969. As a very young boy Shrinivas was a normal child in school except that he seemed to have an ear for music. Then one day, when he was only six years old, his parents came home to find him playing on his father's mandolin. Inspired by the boy's interest in music, Satyanarayana taught his son what little music he knew, and Shrinivas began playing light music on the mandolin. Subbaraju, a classically trained musician and a disciple of the famous musical stalwart Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, who had taught music to Shrinivas' father sensed the young boy's musical aptitude and decided to teach him classical music. He had no experience on the mandolin, so he would sing Carnatic music which Shrinivas would then play on the mandolin. In this way the young musician developed his own style. Yes, indeed a star was born....
Mandolin Shrinivas has often been compared to some of the world greatest prodigies. "Some of you have heard or read about exceptionally gifted children, our own Mandolin Shrinivas, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Beethoven, Sir Isaac Newton, Picasso, Madam Curie, the list is endless" (courtesy THE HINDU, Sunday, May 3, 1992) To Shrinivas the mandolin was his first love. He expended all his latent talent to conquer this little known alien instrument. Such was the proficiency he attained that his father soon realized that what he had on his hands was a "child prodigy" and no less ! Sparing no effort and time, he swept his son on his sail to recognition. The creative energy in Shrinivas swirled like a tidal wave around the Carnatic music world. The way critics gushed, it was hard to tell if they were talking about a child or a god! "He was hardly nine. Innocence was writ large on his face. But the music that he produced on the little brittle mandolin was unbelievably Carnatic and classical to the core, throwing into the shade even the top instrumentalists. One had to rub one's eyes and pinch oneself to make sure that a nine-year-old lad was performing musical miracles on the dais. He even operated on offbeat summations revealing virtuosity of a high order. That he could conceive in his mind the raga in all its grandeur and inherent niceties and transform them into musical extravaganzas had to be seen and heard to be believed ! It was clear that there was a divine force expressing itself through him in his tiny instrument". Shrinivas got his first big break in Gudivada in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, during the Sri Thyagaraja Aradhana festival. He was barely nine then. The rest is musical
history.
Shrinivas has grown into a colossus with only sky as the limit. " The magnificent music that emanates from the mandolin of young Shrinivas has the freshness and spontaneity of a mountain brook. The kalpanaswaras are like cascading waterfalls and the alaps a serene, majestic river flowing through the plains. His fingers caress and cajole original and remarkable proyogas of Carnatic music from this western instrument" Nobody in recent times has achieved charisma in as quick a time as Shrinivas has done. He is a musical phenomenon to whom perfection of tone and execution come as spontaneously as the free and unfettered flow of his ideas.
The mandolin in its original form is typically an acoustic stringed instrument about 60cm (2 ft) long with deeply vaulted ribs and a table slanted downward at the lower end. It has a neck-cum-peghead attached to a hollow oval shaped sound box. It has four pairs of loop-ended double rib fastened metal strings secured to hooks on the body on one end, and passed across a low bridge (on the sound box) and a nut (on the finger board) to the pegs inserted into a rectangular peg-box. A small flexible plectrum is used to vibrate the strings. A feature of mandolin playing is the constant reiteration of all long pitches, which counteracts its weak sustaining power. The thinnest string is called 1st string, the next string is the 2nd string which is slightly thicker, and so on until the fourth string. The acoustic
Mandolins are unsuitable for carnatic music. The electrically
modified Mandolin is the one used by U. Shrinivas which is suitable
for "gamakas" (sustained notes).
Heard melodies are sweet; but unheard melodies are sweeter. Who would have thought that the six year old Shrinivas, who was casually strumming the mandolin at a musical party would one day be the youngest performing artiste at the Festival of India at Paris ? He has given a new dimension to the mandolin.... Shrinivas rectified the inadequacy of the instrument to negotiate Carnatic ragas. He modified the traditional mandolin and bringing about alterations in the thickness of the strings. He has made it more adaptable, facilitating playing of "swaras" of even the lower octave on it. "Yes, at first it was difficult to produce Carnatic Music on the instrument. I added an extra string, pitched at the base, 'sa' (shadjamam) and then no Carnatic raga was beyond its scope. The tonal range of the five strings arranged in the sequence of sa, pa, sa, pa, sa gave the necessary freedom to improvise. I can now play any Carnatic raga on my mandolin - even our Thodi which is the most demanding of them all" Shrinivas has been able to bring out skillfully finest and clear notes, soft sounds and "gamakas" (sustained notes) which are alien to the instrument. The higher octaves are as easily spirated as he placidly plays the lower ones. Indeed it is rightly said that "an instrument must produce vocal music and not instrumental". Shrinivas' does. Maestro U.Shrinivas' - Mandolin Mandolin Shrinivas, is perhaps the greatest thing to have happened to "mandolin", for it was he who adapted the instrument to carnatic classical music, made some structural modifications and introduced ingenious playing techniques to take mandolin to its present enviable position in music. The Mandolin Samrat's contribution to music and the instrument is invaluable, and he has elevated the mandolin to the status of a lead instrument and that too the complex Carnatic Classical Music. It would be worthwhile dwelling in sufficient detail on U.Shrinivas' design in order to fully comprehend the magnitude and enormity of his contribution. 'Gamakas (sustained notes), one would doubtless agree, are quintessential to carnatic music - so much so that, one cannot play carnatic music without using 'gamakas' (sustained notes). With the original design of the mandolin the musician venturing to play carnatic music on it, faced two major problems : The presence
of pairs of strings made it difficult to render complex 'gamaka's
(sustained notes) on the mandolin. Mandolin Shrinivas came up with some modifications which (i) eliminated completely the problem of 'gamaka' (sustained notes) rendition. (ii) to a great extent enhanced the sustenance of the instrument, and (iii) enhanced the acoustic range of the instrument. The modifications
have opened up the floodgates of expression to the mandolin which
were hitherto thought impossible. The inevitable fallout of these
modifications is that mandolin, in this new design, has lost
its characteristic "plink-plunk" sound (attributable
to the pairs of strings) and the playing style of continuous,
fast up-down plucking as a means of sustaining notes. But then,
in view of the stupendous vistas and the expressing potential
opened up by the new design, one is more than pleased to overlook
this.
Shrinivas had
the privilege of playing with great artists like:
Jazz Festival in Germany Jazz buffs talk about intermingling of classical Indian music with modern Western jazz sounds. Never was this "fusion" more apparent than in the Jazzfest held in West Berlin in 1983. But the show was really stolen by thirteen-year old boy's wonder, U.Shrinivas, whose performance on the penultimate day earned thunderous applause and perhaps more notice backstage than any other act. " He's got it in him. He's fantastic" raved Don Cherry, a great jazz trumpeter, who has studied Indian music under the Dagar Brothers in Bombay. Shrinivas' virtuoso handling of the mandolin was even more remarkable considering his placement in the festival; pitted against Miles Davis and his All-Star band, the young prodigy was billed to perform under high pressure conditions on his first exposure to foreign audiences. He was obliged by the audience to extend the 45 minute set by an hour long encore, and then the concert was broadcast unprogrammed and in its entirety on television and radio the next day. Cevantino Festival, Mexico 1987 In October 1987, Shrinivas toured Mexico and Cuba to participate in Cevantino festival, Mexico. He is the first Carnatic musician to visit Cuba and the first South Indian Carnatic musician who participated in this festival. Paloma, the wife of the Mexican President, who had intended to satisfy formality with a 10 min appearance, was so captivated by Shrinivas' music that she stayed back for a whole hour. Olympic Arts Festival at Barcelona, 1992 There were artistes from 60 countries and Shrinivas was the only one from India. The duration was 45 minutes. One has to stop at the 44th minute, but the minute when Shrinivas stopped, the 9000 strong audience started clamouring "once more" and he was accorded a non-stop standing ovation. So the organisers finally gave him another 10 minutes. Fusion Albums Dream Dream, a mix of classical Indian music, electric mandolin and soaring electric guitar creates a worldly fusion of ragas, progressive rock and ambient/techno, a musical fever dream accented with other oddities, from violin and cello to drum loops. It's highly improvisational, with Michael Brook contributing King Crimsonish guitar against Shrinivas' nimble runs on the mandolin. The sharp twang of the plucked strings of Shrinivas' echo-drenched mandolin provides a striking contrast with the cello and violin. The somber title track features droning wordless vocals from Jane Siberry, while Brook's guitar soundscapes and Nigel Kennedy's violin underlie Shrinivas' melodic play on "Run". Drum loops set the hypnotic tone on the upbeat "Dance". "Think" offers a quiet meditation. Full of dense atmospherics, "Dream" feels close in spirit to Brian Eno's groundbreaking, wistful "Before and After Science" and other landmark ambient works. Brook jokingly refers to "Dream" as an "ambient-crossover-techno-fusion record". The above information is courtesy of Mandolin Shrinivas' website. Web design by JIVI solutions. Art work (c) Leelavati Bagavant. |
